Mr. Walker said, "I am very pleased that David will lead our litigation efforts. He is an extraordinarily talented trial lawyer and a great legal tactician. The Commission will benefit greatly from his vast knowledge of the federal securities laws and his unparalleled legal judgment."

Mr. Kornblau joined the Commission in July 1995 as an Assistant Chief Litigation Counsel. Among the cases he has prosecuted for the Commission is an action filed earlier this year against a Florida hedge fund manager, David Mobley, Sr., who hid $59 million in investor losses by fabricating account statements for seven years. Mr. Kornblau also spearheaded the Commission's efforts that led to a $2.25 million settlement in an insider trading action against Raymond Lum, a prominent Singapore businessman, as well as the shut-down of a nationwide $50 million Ponzi scheme called the Better Life Club of America. He also worked on a criminal securities fraud prosecution in Memphis, Tennessee, by special assignment to the Department of Justice.

From 1987 until he joined the Commission, Mr. Kornblau was a litigator at the law firm of Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison in New York. Prior to that he served as a law clerk on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in San Francisco.

Mr. Kornblau, 39, earned his undergraduate degree in physics from Princeton University and his law degree from Harvard Law School.